Guns, Germs, & Steel

[the Fates of Human Societies]

Winner of the Pulitzer PrizeIn this groundbreaking work, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history by revealing the environmental factors actually responsible for history's broadest patterns. It is a story that spans 13,000 years of human history, beginning when Stone Age hunter-gatherers constituted the entire human population. Guns, Germs, and Steel is a world history that really is a history of all the world's peoples, a unified narrative of human life.

Comment

I like books that make me feel smarter after having read them, or in this case, listened to them. While incredibly dry is some sections, there are a lot of interesting facts here on human development and population trends.

Summary

Diamond, an evolutionary biologist, explores human history from the Stone Age hunter-gatherers to today's complex societies. His thesis focuses on environmental factors as the major influences on a society's development as opposed to the many racially-based theories of human history. He maintains that today's "less developed" societies are actually composed of smarter individuals because they have to grapple with daily life at a survival level. This book explores how the Eurasian content was the major winner because of its east-west orientation and width that allowed knowledge to pass more porously through different societies. North and South America, as well as Australia, had different challenges because of their north-south orientation and geographical features. Diamond also had some interesting comments on how today's food supply is based on 7 plants and 5 mammals that were domesticated thousands of years ago.